Several hundred graves at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery missing American flags on Memorial Day

Cemetery officials say they are looking into why hundreds of graves did not have American flags next to them this Memorial Day.

KGTV

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SAN DIEGO - A viewer called 10News after noticing his friend's grave at the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery did not have an American flag on Memorial Day, and that turned out to be the case for several hundred other graves of service members and their spouses or parents.

Chuck Rickman had come to honor his friend Vaughn Divine who passed away. The two served in the Navy together and Rickman comes every year to pay tribute. This year, however, he noticed no flag.

"This is just dishonorable. These people gave their lives for service to our country and if they are going to honor them they should honor everybody," said Rickman.

The cemetery's director, Doug Ledbetter, said they always order extra flags and even checked the graves Saturday to make sure all of them were covered.

"I am really shocked because we go through great lengths to make sure the graves do have flags to make sure we have an ample supply of flags," said Ledbetter.

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, veterans and active-duty military personnel place flags on the graves. Rickman reached a Boy Scouts representative, who said the cemetery only gave enough for the ground graves but not the memorial walls.

"I'm not blaming the Boy Scouts; I just think somewhere somebody dropped the ball," said Rickman.

Cemetery officials say they are looking into what happened so history won't repeat itself.

Copyright 2014 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.